Food Waste: A Growing Issue

You would think that food waste would
be a lesser problem when it comes to issues surrounding the environment
but unfortunately that is not the case. Every year developed countries waste
over 200 millions tons of food which is equal to about how much food is produced by
places like sub-Saharan Africa. In the US alone each person wastes about 20
pounds of food on average per month. On a base level this seems like it may
not be a major issue but this also has several environmental consequences.

These mass amounts of food waste
doesn't just degrade when it goes to the many land fills across the world they also
release enormous amounts of greenhouse gases like methane and carbon dioxide. It is
estimated that the carbon dioxide emission from uneaten food (without considering land
used to

produce food) is about 3.3 billion tons. So, food wastage ranks pretty high up
there in terms of total emission. Then when you include the 1.4 billion hectares of
land that is used to produce this uneaten food you find that these numbers continue to grow. But
luckily there are a few ways that we can all cut down our own person
food waste.

Some of these ways include freezing
more foods as well as making large meals that can be segmented and frozen like soups or
vegetables. Even though storing foods in the freezer can slightly alter texture and taste it
can help when trying to hold on to leftovers made for daily meals. Also, don't always throw
out food that is past it's best by date because these dates are not hard and fast rules as to when
something may go bad. You can usually tell by smell or appearance as to whether something has
gone bad or not but if you are not sure you can use sites like USDA.gov or StillTasy.com to help.

You can also help to support different
organizations or get your local government to support legislation to
help cut down on food waste or greenhouse gases from food waste.
Charities are a good example of organizations to support because many
of them take in food donated from retailers or even farmers. As an
example of helpful legislation there have been places like Australia
that are looking into ways to separate solid waste from food waste in
landfills and by doing so significantly reduce methane emissions.